It’s finally Friday and today we visited the Computer Science SINC Site. I worked there once last semester and I got lost trying to find the place because it was so secluded. Today we met Jennifer Jaiswal, the Blackboard Support Specialist, and she taught us how to work Blackboard and how to assist students and instructors with Blackboard problems. This was one of the classes I have been waiting for this semester because I know so little about how Blackboard works so it was really nice to be able to play around with it and get to know how everything is set up. As a student I only knew the basics: checking folders and links and notifications, disscussion boards, and occasionally safe assign, but after playing on the “Blackboard playground” I was able to see the many more funtions Blackboard offers. I also found out Blacboard can place people into 6 categories:
- Instructors
- UGTAs
- Course Builders
- TAs
- Students
- SNL (forgot what this stands for, but it’s basically the Blackboard support system people)
I learned that themes should be ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990) approved for people with visual disabilities and there is a way to set it so that the theme can be overrided (Settings -> High Contrast Settings -> Overides the set theme for the class to neutral/default). Below are some notes I took during the class when I wasn’t too busy playing on the play ground:
CREATE ITEMS INSTEAD OF FILES. You can upload audio videos, images, and web links on to Blackboard.
MODULES collect inforation from the rest of the Blackboard site (syllabus, lesson plans, etc.)
GROUPS are for easily communication with the people you’re working with whether it be in class or for specific SINC Sites. You can email group members of for a specific SINC site.
Manual enroll: you have the power to assign groups
Self enroll: everyone picks their own groups
CUSTOMIZATION is for everything related to the course itself->Properties to make certain course related items available or unavailable.
DONT USE BULK DELETE IT WILL DELETE EVERYTHING!!!
Rose likes things uploaded as a PDF and it should open in a new window, not a new tab.
Overall I thought this was the most useful and hands on class so far, even though I still feel a little unfamiliar with all the Blackboard functionalities, I hope to be able to help with any future Blackboard problems.